Week in Training (November 17th to 23rd)

While the rest of the country has been experiencing a hot week, Perth has been quite cool this week. I’m grateful for this as I’m still not looking forward to the summer heat!

Thanks to the coolness of the weather, I was able to head out for a few more runs this week. As I’ve mentioned before, I love Kayla Itsines’ BBG program and how they tone up the body in just a few short workouts. However, because I’m so used to incorporating running in my workouts, I just didn’t feel like the recommended power walks for cardio were enough for me. (Side note: in the Kayla Itsines BBG 1.0, I incorporated a mix of running and swimming instead of the power walks. I was curious to know if just the walks alone would be enough so I decided to try just sticking to the recommended LISS – low intensity steady state cardio – in the first few weeks of the BBG 2.0).

Now keep in mind that this is just my own opinion and I’ve seen lots of girls who follow the Kayla Itsines BBG to the letter, including LISS, and have had amazing body transformations without any additional exercise. However, for me, those walks didn’t feel like they were enough and I definitely felt much better when I started incorporating runs instead of walks. The weight definitely felt like it was falling off my tummy area faster and that was such a relief to me as I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t seeing much difference in that area. In fact, to my horror, my stomach seemed to be getting bigger after the fantastic results of the BBG 1.0. Finally, I think running would suit me more than walking because it lets me eat more! I love to eat – I’m such a big eater and portion sizing has always been a bit of an issue for me to the point where I’m actually kind of worried that my eating habits are affecting my results from the BBG so far. So being able to eat to the point where I feel satisfied and then run it off is a good compromise for me!

That’s not to say that I want to eat unhealthily or binge completely on my food. I’m still keeping a close eye on what I eat and doing my best to make sure I eat clean and healthy at least 80% of the time and also ensure that I only eat till I’m full, not until I’m in ‘crying in pain from my food coma on the sofa’ mode. I’m a lot better at mindful eating now and I feel like I’ve been eating quite healthy and balanced meals this week – witness, as an example, one of my meals of the week as pictured above 🙂 a delicious chicken salad from the Market Juicery (love this place!), some pre cubed watermelon and a Pressed Earth green juice.

(Second side note: I am pretty excited that Perth is finally getting some awesome fresh cold-pressed juice products on supermarket shelves! I’ve been so jealous that all the other states over east have had their juice detox companies and fresh juiceries way ahead of us and it’s so great to see some of these products and companies finally making their way west!)

But back to eating habits. While I’ve been on the Kayla Itsines BBG 2.0, I kept feeling like I wasn’t seeing as much progress as I’d liked and I kept feeling that my nutrition had somewhat to do with this. I was trying to stick to the recommended portions of clean food and yet it didn’t feel like it was enough for me. I wasn’t feeling satisfied, it wasn’t suiting my lifestyle (my partner balked a lot at our meals during this time plus we often go out so that made it doubly hard to stick to it!), I struggled to stick with it and even when I did stick with it, I felt like I wasn’t seeing any difference on my BBG progress anyway. I was getting frustrated and I knew there was something wrong here. It wasn’t until I went back to running and, at the same time, allowed myself bigger portions of healthy food (not huge, eat-till-you-die portions but just enough till I felt satisfied) I finally felt like I’ve reached the right balance for me.

Now, again, this isn’t meant to cast any doubts on how well the Kayla Itsines BBG guides work because overall I’m still happy with the results I’ve had from it so far, all the way from when I started Week 1, plus I really liked how it gave a much-needed boost to my fitness this year. But every girl’s body is different and I think I just needed to tweak the program that little bit to suit my own body’s needs. Think of the program as the one dress that can make every girl look good – yet our individual bodies are still so different from each other that one or two more tweaks, based on trial and error and getting to really know yourself and your body, can really add that extra oomph that will make the dress feel like it was tailor-made especially just to fit you like a glove.

Moral of the story? Learn how to do you. In the case of health and fitness, learn to listen to your body and what it is telling you. Your body will always tell you exactly what you need, if you learn how to listen to it, and what’s right for you.

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